Martin J. Leahy, Ph.D. & Mark Magerman, Ph.D., L.C.S.W.

Tina Turner was hospitalized in New York on November 30th with a fever and had to be put on oxygen. She refused to cancel her show the next night, took the stage at the Garden, and delighted the audience for 2 1/2 hours.

Then there is the Miami banker, Leonard Abess Jr., who cashed out his ownership shares and gave away his $60 million bonus to all bank employees and 72 former employees.  ”Those people who joined me and stayed with me at the bank with no promise of equity — I always thought someday I’m going to surprise them,” he said. “I sure as heck don’t need [the money].”

And, of course, last week New York actor Chad Lindsey jumped down onto the subway tracks to pick up a man who had fallen from the platform, hit his head, and could not get up. He lifted the man onto the platform, with the help of others, waited for police to arrive, and then caught the next train. He said he did not think about it and cannot remember the moment he decided to jump down onto the tracks. Lindsey is currently in an off-Broadway play, “a true tale about a wild child found on the streets of Nuremburg in 1828…. [T]he piece explores all the good and evil that happens when an innocent is introduced into society.“  In the play, Lindsey must repeatedly lift someone who cannot walk.

We see these as acts of love. We wonder:  Is there room for love in organizations?

University of Wales professor Mary Miller has conducted research on love in organizations.  Her work draws on psychological (Frankl, Fromm, and Allport) and leadership theories (Burns, transformational leadership; Boulding, love as a basis of power-without-abuse). She proposes this definition for love in organizations: “Love is the choice to will the highest good.” She sets aside metaphysical, religious, or emotional aspects of love, not to dismiss those, but to focus on behaviors which any or all of us could support as valuable. She claims that love is a core value, a choice any of us can make about how we relate to the world; it becomes an attitude that directs all behaviors.  We can witness this love in concrete action.

And then there is the other side…

What’s in it for me?  How fast can I get it?

AIG rewarded the very failed leaders who took their company down and contributed to the current economic crisis. They felt they had to pay out 160 million to retain the “best and the brightest.” US taxpayers took out loans to fund their payroll.

Merrill Lynch and Bank of America executives could face charges for securities fraud. Merrill secretly gave out $3.6 billion in bonuses to execs days before its acquisition by BoA; almost 700 execs each received bonuses of at least $1 million.

In January, Merrill posted a 4th quarter loss of $15.3 billion and so Bank of America, nervous about its forthcoming acquisition, went back to the federal government and got $20 billion to help offset losses related to the Merrill acquisition, plus the guarantee of another $100 Billion to cover losses related to risky or “toxic assets.”  BoA had already been given $25 billion in October 08.  NY State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo believes that BoA was complicit in the deal to give out the bonuses before Merrill announced its 4th quarter results.  BoA execs were aware of Merrill’s bonus plan. All of this comes after news of Merrill CEO John Thain’s request for a $10 million bonus for 2008, and the $1.22 million makeover of his office, which included an $88,000 rug, a $35,000 commode, and a $1,400 parchment trash can.   His 2008 compensation was $83 million; the Board nixed the bonus.

How many people need to be laid off to recover what was spent on bonuses?  How long will it take taxpayers to pay back the money borrowed to bail out these companies?

Surely anyone would certainly welcome the opportunity to earn a big bonus, so that is not the problem.  Executives at those banks knew that thousands of employees would be severed and that taxpayers would provide the money to reward the very same failed executives who created the mess.

What must they be thinking? What is their understanding of their place in the world?  

A compassionate interpretation might suggest that fear is at work here.Gregory Berns, neuroeconomist at Emory University, uses brain-scanning technologies like MRI to decode the decision-making systems of the human mind.  His research shows that fear impairs decision-making especially during times when we simply anticipate pain or loss.  During these times, we tend to hang on to what is ours; the fear system in the brain turns off exploratory and risk-taking activities.

His counsel is to shut off the TV fear mongers, avoid pessimistic people, and turn our eyes away from the stock market ticker.  On the other hand, he suggests we would be foolish to believe that businesses will return to life as it was. We must, he says, explore and take prudent risks to discover new ways of making the money we need to survive and prosper.  It seems the odds for success would increase if we were to accept realty, like it or not – we are all in this together.

Might US groups need to examine organizational cultures?

Geert Hofstede gives a much more severe reckoning, a gift for growth, even if it is packaged in ways that might make it hard to receive. Between 1995 and 2002, he collected data in 17 countries on junior managers’ perceptions of what senior managers valued: “US business leaders as more than elsewhere are fascinated by bigness, greedy, short-term oriented and out for power. They were seen as less interested in the longer term future, taking less responsibility for their employees, less innovative and caring less for the continuity of their businesses.”

Geert Hofstede has dedicated his life to studying  national cultures and their impact on workplace values.  In the 60’s and 70’s, as an IBM employee, he collected data from over 100,000 IBM employees in 40 countries and created a model for national cultures. The model, updated since the 70s, allows one to rate a national culture along 5 dimensions.

• Power distance is the “extent to which less powerful members expect and accept that power is distributed unequally.” The US is among those countries with a lower power distance; the lowest are Austria, Israel, Denmark, New Zealand, and Ireland. Malaysia represents the highest power distance.
• Individualism, the opposite of collectivism, “stands for a society where ties between individuals are loose; everyone is expected to look after him or herself” and the immediate family. The US is #1 with the highest score for individualism; Guatemala, a collectivist culture, has the lowest score for individualism
• Masculinity, opposite of femininity, “stands for a society where gender roles are distinct:  men are supposed to be assertive, tough, and focused on material success; women are supposed to be more modest, tender, and concerned with quality of life.” The US is a masculine culture but not even close to Japan, the most masculine culture; Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and the Netherlands are the most feminine cultures.
• Uncertainty Avoidance is “the extent to which members of a culture feel threatened by uncertain or unknown situations.” Countries which have strong uncertainty avoidance include Greece, Portugal, and Japan.  Given the low tolerance for uncertainty and ambiguity, these cultures tend to have a lot of rules.  Countries with low uncertainty avoidance include Singapore, Jamaica, Denmark and Sweden. They tend to feel less threatened by the unknown.  The US is at the midpoint between strong and weak uncertainty avoidance.
• Long-term orientation, the opposite of short term orientation “stands for the fostering of virtues oriented towards future rewards, in particular perseverance and thrift”.  China is the country with the strongest long-term orientation; the US is among with lowest scores for long-term orientation.

Hofstede claims that the current financial crisis is the result of imbalance in two cultural dimensions in the US:  masculinity (bigness, showing off, lack of care for those weaker than self) and individualism (caring primarily about self interest). He traces the imbalance in American business to Ronald Reagan who eliminated those checks and balances that had sustained the polarities of masculinity-femininity and individualism-collectivism. Unfortunately, Hofstede neglects to acknowledge what is positive about masculinity and individualism.  While he does seem to have an agenda, this does not discount his major points.  How might American organizations restore the creative contention in the masculine-feminine and individual-collective polarities?

Now Mark has an experiment…

Creative Experiment:  What is your experience of working with me?

Consider your life’s trajectory.  Look at you who have been, how you are, and who you want to be.

Answer this question:  How do others in my organization experience me? Make some brief notes.

Pick 5 or 6 others in your organization. Ask them: What is your experience of working with me? How has that been for you?  Tell them you want to hear the good, the bad, and the ugly. You choose the people; we would encourage you to step out, just beyond the boundary of your comfort zone, take some calculated risks in choosing others.

Consolidate what you heard and compare this with you own guesses about how others experience you.

Groups might even experiment with asking other groups these same questions.

Do other individuals (or groups) experience you (or your group) as choosing to will the highest good? Who around you models love in organizations?  Who demonstrates a balance between Hofstede’s “masculine-feminine,” and individual-collective polarities?

This experiment is intended to support good contact with others and to enhance your awareness.  That is enough as a beginning; don’t rush into taking action. You will know when you have assimilated the news and are ready to experiment with some new ways of being in your group or organization.  Happy inquiring!

There is no direct link between leadership and superior performance.  There is a direct link between team cohesion and superior performance.  There is a direct link between leadership and team cohesion.

Leaders contribute to superior performance by helping groups develop team cohesion. These are the findings from a 4 month long study on leadership (Michalisin, Karau, &  Tangpong, 2007).  This study, unlike much of the popular writing on leadership, provides evidence for leadership practice.

These findings suggest a correction to the overemphasis on the individual — the leader’s personality, intrapsychic processes, and thinking — to what happens in action in the group being led.  There is no better place to witness that than in meetings.  Rather than talking about a person’s leadership color/style, observe it in action and check out the kaleidoscope he or she helps to create in the space between people. ‘By their teams you shall know them?’

People on teams find ways to adjust to one another, these habits make perfect sense given the then current circumstances.  However, when circumstances change, those adjustments might need to be brought into awareness and new levels of team cohesion might be required to achieve what members want to create.

What is team cohesion?

co·he·sion   [koh-hee-zhuhn]

1. act of sticking together, resisting separation, uniting
2. the molecular force between particles within a body or substance that acts to unite them. (Physics) 
3. the property of unity in a written text or a segment of spoken discourse that stems from links among its surface elements (Linguistics)

Clearly, thinking and the mind play a role here, e.g., the logical cohesion of a team’s strategy.  But the notion of “sticking together” evokes standing shoulder-to-shoulder and stirs up the realm of feelings and relationships with others.

How  can I test and build muscle for team cohesion?

You can assess team cohesion by personally experiencing the emotional climate and degrees of emotional competence in meetings.  Note that I did not say “emotional intelligence” since emotional competence resides in the body (physical expressions) and heart (feelings) as much as the mind. 

What you experience physically (eyes rolling, heart thumping, glances exchanged, grins, sighs, etc.) and emotionally (anger, joy, fear, excitement, shame, etc.) will be direct knowing of team cohesion, more powerful than the once removed knowing, filtered through thought, were you to stand above it all and observe.  By the way, I wonder:  does using the term emotional intelligence make it less frightening and more acceptable to enter that forbidden realm of human feelings.  Are we kidding ourselves by pretending that emotions will step aside for reason?

Pay attention to the action in meetings and how you and others respond; invite others in the group to notice what happens and how they and others respond.  Here are some sensitizing concepts, not the truth - just things to consider that might deserve notice. These are a combination of signs for a group’s emotional competence based on Martin Buber’s (1985, 1998) marks of genuine dialogue, Peter Reason’s action research (Reason, 1995) on group development, and my own research on dialogue (Leahy 2001; Gilly & Leahy, 2008).

Safety: Do I feel safe in this group? Inclusion: Do people accept me as a partner in the conversation? Do I feel like I have a place in the group?  Concerning our shared task, is what I have to offer wanted, needed, and valued?

Presence: Am I present?  Am I paying attention to both these people and what is happening here and now? Am I dealing with our current situation: this particular group, at this time, and in this place with things that do (not should) matter in our real lives? 

Bring all of myself: Am I able to bring all of myself to this meeting?  Am I being myself or am I concerned about seeming - worrying about how I might seem to others and posturing in a way to gain approval?

Difference: Is disagreement pointed out?  Do we deal directly with differences of opinion?  Does this generate excitement and creative energy?  Can I imagine what might be real for the others without having to abandon my own take on a situation?

Mutuality: Is this an authentic collaboration between respected individuals in a network of (affectionate) relationships? Does each person feel like a unique contributor? Are emotions expressed?  Are anger and care expressed with equal ease? Are the persons here of value in and of themselves without regard for how they might be of use to me?

I don’t want what I have said above to be taken as answers. My comments are suggestions for experiments in a complex domain. The question remains:  How do you create team cohesion? 

References

Buber, M. (1985).  Between man and man. New York:  Collier Books. Buber, M. (198).  The knowledge of man:  Selected essays.  Amherst, NY:  Humanity Books.

Gilly, M. S., & Leahy, M. (In press, available Q4, 2008). Learning in the space between us.  In Beth Fisher-Yoshida, Kathy D. Geller, & Steven A. Schapiro (Eds.), Innovations in Transformative Learning: Space, Culture and the Arts. Counterpoints Series: Studies in the Post-Modern Theory of Education.  New York: Peter Lang Publishing Group.

Leahy, M. (2001).  The heart of dialogue. Ph.D. dissertation, Fielding Graduate University, United States — California. Retrieved June 27, 2008, from Dissertations & Theses: Full Text database. (Publication No. AAT 3022121).

Michalisin, M., Karau, S., &  Tangpong, C. (2007). Leadership’s Activation of Team Cohesion as a strategic asset:  An empirical simulation. Journal of Business Strategies, 24(1), 1-26. 

Reason, P. (1995).  The co-operative inquiry group.  In P. Reason (Ed.),  Human inquiry in action:  Developments in new paradigm research.  Thousand Oaks, CA:  Sage Publications.